Creating a Chart of Accounts for a Small Restaurant

Independent restaurant owners often do their own bookkeeping. Even if they hire a professional accountant at year's end, they may save deliberate money by handling the weekly tasks themselves.

Setting up a chart of accounts to fit the restaurant needs generally requires customizing the default choices of any accounting program. The selection of sales and cost of goods accounts on most systems does not provide for the separation of food and beverage categories that are needed.

Even the leading bookkeeping program for small business, while it has a default selection for restaurants, fails to provide all of the accounts that most restaurant owners require. In addition, many of the expense accounts that are added are rarely used, leading to confusion during data entry, and do not help with the overview of the business finances.

The National Restaurant Association publishes a book titled Uniform System of Accounts for Restaurants. The book provides detailed descriptions of the application of generally accepted accounting principles to the restaurant industry.

That book includes a sample chart of accounts, but notes that "the codes used here are not the only method for classifying the accounts". It points out that most restaurants will not use all of the categories listed, and it also notably lacks breakdown of inventory and cost categories beyond "food" and "beverage". Many restaurant owners want further separation of those categories to include sub-categories such as "meat", "seafood", and "produce", and possibly "beer" and "wine" for beverage categories.

While many programs do not require the use of account numbers, the NRA book states that some type of account numbering system must be used. If your program is not showing account numbers, it should have an option on a set up screen to activate that feature.

Any account numbering system is generally grouped so that accounts of a particular type fall within a specific range of numbers. For example, assets may be in the 1000 range, and income accounts in the 4000 range. On systems with many detail accounts, 5 digit numbers may be used to allow more sub-categories, but that is rarely needed for a small restaurant.

Typical number ranges that are used by many accounting systems are as follows:

Asset accounts include cash, bank accounts, inventory, and everything else that is owned.

It is common to assign the first account number, 1000, to Cash, since they are usually ordered, within each group, by liquidity (ease of converting to cash).

A separate account should be used in the chart of accounts for each bank account maintained for the business. If merchant deposits take a few days to reach the bank, a merchant account can be used. Also, if checks are accepted and not processed electronically, an account should be created for checks to be deposited.

New accounts are typically numbered 10 digits apart, so your first two bank accounts may use 1010 and 1020 as account numbers in the chart of accounts. Leaving gaps between the numbers makes it easy to add another account later and squeeze it in to the sort order in any position.

The asset accounts can be numbered as such:

1000 Cash

1010 Primary Bank Account

1020 Bank Account # 2

1060 Merchant Deposit Account

1080 Checks Received

1100 Accounts Receivable

1200 Food Inventory

1210 Meat Inventory

1220 Poultry Inventory

1230 Seafood Inventory

1240 Dairy Inventory

1250 Produce Inventory

1260 Bakery Inventory

1270 Frozen Inventory

1280 Grocery Dry & Canned Inventory

1320 Beverage Inventory

1330 Liquor Inventory

1340 Beer Inventory

1350 Wine Inventory

1360 Merchandise Inventory

1380 Bar & Consumable Inventory

1400 Prepaid Expenses & Advances

1450 Recycle return value

Assets that have a lifespan of several years or more are referred to as Long Term Assets. This also includes any real estate.

1500 Fixed assets

1510 Land & Building

1520 Automobile

1530 Furniture Fixtures & Equipment

1540 Leasehold Improvements

1600 Accumulated Depreciation

1700 Capitalized Start Up Expenses

1800 Security Deposits

Liability Accounts

Liability accounts includes things like credit cards and payables to vendors. It also includes money that has been received for things like tax that is due to the state, tips due to the employees, and gift cards sold but not yet redeemed. Real estate loans and other major financing is sub-categorized as long-term liabilities.

Liability accounts can be numbered as:

2000 Accounts Payable

2110 Credit Card

2120 Credit Card # 2

2130 Credit Card # 3

2140 Credit Card # 4

2210 Sales Tax Payable

2220 Second Tax Payable

2250 Payroll Liabilities

2260 Second Payroll Liability

2280 Tips held

2300 Gift cards & certificates

2350 Customer Credits

2400 Notes Payable

2500 Other debt

Equity Accounts

The owners' investment in the company is represented in the equity accounts. For a corporation, this includes the shareholders equity. It is effectively the money that the business owes back to the owners. When an accounting period is closed, the balance of the income and expense categories is transferred to Retained Earnings, which is also an equity account.

The most basic equity accounts could be numbered:

3000 Owner Capital

3100 Common Stock

3300 Retained Earnings

Income Accounts

Sales fall into the general category of income accounts. A restaurant will obviously want separate categories for food and beverage sales, and may want further separation of beer, wine, and liquor sales.

Typical income accounts are:

4000 Sales Revenue

4200 Food Sales

4320 Beverage Sales

4330 Liquor Sales

4340 Beer Sales

4350 Wine Sales

4360 Merchandise Sales

4500 Catering & contracts

4700 Other Operating Income

4900 Discounts

One difference between the NRA recommendations and many other lists involves the placement of the "other income" accounts. This can include income from sources such as cover charges, games or vending machines, and banquet room rental. Most lists place these accounts in the 8000 range, above expenses, but the NRA list places them in the 6000 range.

Most smaller locations will only need a single category for other income. Since "cost of goods" is a general sub-category of expenses, it makes sense to avoid placing an income category in the middle of the range from COGS through expenses. A single account has been placed in this list within the 4000 range.

Putting the discounts into the revenue category implies that this will be a "contra" account. Where most of the sales categories will have a credit balance, discounts will normally have a debit balance.

Cost of Goods Accounts

The Cost of Goods accounts, also called Cost of Sales or Cost of Goods Sold, represent the food and beverage purchases to provide the meals. Other expenses directly related to sales may be included, such as merchant fees or consumable cups and napkins.

The numbers used here also provide consistency across all accounts, as the last 3 digits of each COGS category is the same as the last 3 digits on the associated inventory account.

A cost of goods list could include:

5000 Cost of Sales

5200 Food Cost

5210 Meat Cost

5220 Poultry Cost

5230 Seafood Cost

5240 Dairy Cost

5250 Produce Cost

5260 Bakery Cost

5270 Frozen Cost

5280 Grocery Dry & Canned Cost

5320 Beverage Cost

5330 Liquor Cost

5340 Beer Cost

5350 Wine Cost

5360 Merchandise Cost

5380 Bar & Consumable Cost

5600 Delivery & direct labor Cost

5700 Merchant Fees

Expense Accounts

This example separates the expense accounts into three primary categories: payroll expenses and other expenses. The payroll expenses are grouped in the 6000 range, with the other operating expenses in the 7000 range. Overhead like rent, taxes, and amortization are bumped into the 8000 range.

While accounts must be broken down at least far enough to separate tax lines, combining rarely used accounts will make the overview much easier to understand. The following list combines several categories that are often separated on other charts.

You should check with your accountant or tax preparer to ensure that anything you combine does, in fact, share the same tax line.

The Inventory Loss / Waste account has been slid in under the 6000 marker, as some may consider it to belong with the Cost of Goods categories.

5800 Inventory Loss / Waste

6000 Labor related expenses

6100 Management Wages

6200 Staff Wages

6300 Contract Labor

6400 Commissions paid

6500 Employee Benefits

6600 Workers Comp Insurance

6700 Employers Payroll Taxes

6800 Payroll processing expense

7100 Direct Operating Expenses

7110 China – Glassware – Flatware

7120 Restaurant & Kitchen Supply

7130 Cleaning Supply & Expense

7140 Decorations & Guest Supply

7150 Laundry – Linen – Uniforms

7160 Fees – Permits – Licenses

7200 Pest – Security – other contract

7250 POS – Tech support – Online serv

7300 Marketing

7310 Media & Print advertising

7320 Promotional events

7400 Automobile & travel

7500 Music and Entertainment

7600 Repairs and Maintenance

7700 Utilities

7750 Telephone & net connection

7800 General and Administrative

7810 Bad Debts – Over / short

7820 Bank fees

7830 Insurance

7840 Interest

7850 Professional fees

7890 Misc. Office expense

8100 Rent and Occupancy costs

8200 Equipment Rental

8600 Sales tax paid on purchases

8700 Amortization

8900 Other expense

9000 Income Tax

Other Accounts

The only remaining items to account for are the sale of major assets, other income from sources including restaurant operations (such as investments or sub-letting space), and a placeholder account for transactions where the business owner needs their accountant's assistance.